Never Stood A Chance
by Lady Cailan
Summary: We shall meet again someday, perchance.  But know this - my love was real, my soul was yours from the beginning.  I never stood a chance.  Mahariel after the Blight pondering on her relationship with Alistair. One-shot. Angsty.


_Another one-shot has grabbed me! Read and let me know what you think! Not as dark as some of my others-but as always, it's Alistair-centric. Hope you enjoy! Credit for the two line poem goes to me, in case someone was wondering if it was something I found. LCailan_

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**Never Stood A Chance**

_We shall meet again someday, perchance._

_But know this - my love was real, my soul was yours from the beginning._

_I never stood a chance._

ooooooooooooooooo

She never stood a chance.

He captured her in ways she didn't even understand. It had never been as simple as the way he smiled at her. Or in the way his eyes glowed by the firelight. No, whatever it was that ensnared her heart lay far beyond these shallow trappings.

She would never be able to define what it was about him that made it so effortless to give away her heart.

And yet, she did. A gift more dear to her than anything she could give him. A gift only his, no matter what lay in their future.

It began with a flower. Splendid, velvety petals tinged with radiant white. It represented life amidst death. Light victorious over darkness and the presence of beauty in a world full of ugliness.

It reminded him of her, and he told her so.

Yes, it started with a flower, and his bashful yet certain declaration of feelings for her. A man uncertain of how he would be received, yet bolstered by an emotion that was so new to him he did not yet know what it might feel like to have his heart broken. Words as sweet as honey and as sincere as the Maker's blessing.

Fumbling yet direct.

Awkward, yet endearing.

Shy yet dashing.

His cheeks flushed, his cinnamon eyes sparkling with resplendence of first love. And his smile, so irrefutable, so innocent of all taint that it brought tears to her eyes.

She never stood a chance.

A woman of great strength who possessed a heart of steely determination was brought to her knees the instant he glanced her way.

This feeling, this man, was her weakness. She knew it. Angry at first, and then accepting in the end. For some things you could not change.

A flower. His words of love, and a kiss. A kiss which made all other kisses, everything else which existed, unimportant.

Leaving her only satisfied whilst in his arms, and yearning for more when he was not.

Ooooooooooooooo

She never stood a chance.

She stood by when his parentage was revealed, weeping only when he did not know it, wondering when he would leave her, for leave her he would.

She knew it. It was as inevitable as the sun rising in the morning and the moon shining by night.

He was King of Ferelden, and she was a hunter of the Dales. Eventually love would not be enough, no matter how pure. How sincere. How deep and strong.

Yet, she never left his side. How could she? His gentle words stirred the deepest parts of her soul. His whisper melted her fears. His love strengthened her. His touch transformed her.

She was no longer the woman she had been before. She was now his. Inexplicably and painstakingly. He changed her world. Made it so that without him nothing made sense.

Of course, there was purpose. There were goals. She met them along side him. They fought together. She pushed all thought aside. Now, things were just as they were supposed to be. She was with him, and in the present it was all that mattered.

oooooooooooo

He never stood a chance.

They made the choices for him, made it impossible for him to do as he wished. The trappings of being crowned King of Ferelden had been a cover up of pomp for the drab reality that his life was no longer his own.

They took away his freedom.

They took away his free will.

They forced him into a life he didn't know and didn't understand and hadn't wanted.

And, in the end, they had taken him away. For love had not been enough. The pull of duty more fervent, more poignant than what he felt for her. Not even real, pure love could have conquered it. She had known it would happen, had waited for it fearfully, had cried silent, bitter tears over it many a night.

But knowing it would happen did not make it easier for her when it finally did.

She faced him that day, the day that she thought it would end. The sun was bright, brilliantly shining in a sky that did not know her pain and her loss. His golden armor, the armor of his late brother, the armor of kings, reflected the sun as it exploded in myriad against the shining metal.

He was the sun. He was everything. Everything to her.

Even then, that day she had loved him with a passion she could not understand.

Just as sincere as he had been the day he spoke of love, he spoke of his sorrow.

Of his duty. Of things she knew and had not voiced.

He broke her heart, never wanting to, but doing it just the same.

She was strong, she did not break. Not even when she was alone watching that brilliant sun set on the day. Watching him walk away, leaving her empty, alone.

It was over. That, she was certain.

oooooooooooooooo

But it did not end that day. She did not know it then.

Amazingly, it ended with a flower.

A flower. It ended just as it had started.

A vibrant red rose, the color of another sunset as it splashed vividly along the horizon, setting behind high, onyx mountains. Another day months later, and another sunset.

The ending of this day was the ending of what they had.

Red, the color of the vermillion mud along the hillsides of Redcliffe, as the setting sun hit against them, swathing them with its magnificence. The color of the sunset, large and ocherous.

Red, the color of his blood as it had seeped into the dry earth, burgundy like wine. Blood shed for Ferelden, for his kingdom. Blood as his duty.

The color of her anger as she had watched him fall, a man strong and broken at the same time. With his death was her own. Her tears -tears of pain, of bitterness, of unfairness, had thinned the blood on his armor.

Blood as red as the flower she now held.

The Blight had ended. He was dead. Her life snuffed out with his last breath.

It ended with a flower, a single red rose that she placed on his grave, a small grey slab quite like all the rest. Unassuming, unpretentious, just as he had been. A stone that was as common as he had felt. A fallen king buried like a commoner. He had wanted to rest within those vermillion hills in the village where he had been raised.

The rose lay on the stone, red against gray, it's beauty as pained as he heart was.

A rose to remember. A rose to glorify who he had been. A rose for the undying love she would always feel, for in her heart, where it mattered most he still lived, and would live for always.

Her trembling fingers clutched the note tightly to her chest. A note which had come with a rose identical to the one she now lay on his gravestone. A note which had told her that it had never been over.

Her tear filled eyes took in his words once more, written long after his coronation. Words proving love had never died, only waited.

He had left her behind in this cruel world.

He had left her alone to spend the rest of her days wondering why.

He had left her, and it had been his choice.

He had left her, but he had always loved her. And this, this...she would not forget.

_For Ferelden I do not do this._

_For my people know my loyalty_

_I gave them all I had. _

_I gave them you._

_For Ferelden I do not do this._

_But I do this for you._

_They took my freedom._

_They took my voice._

_They made a man that I was not._

_This, my last act, is my own._

_My only salvation from what I have become._

_For without you, I am nothing._

_We shall meet again someday, perchance._

_But know this - my love was real, my soul was yours from the beginning._

_I never stood a chance._


End file.
